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Posts Tagged as‘problem solving’

How do you motivate your workforce? What systems do you have in place to assure that your team can work through complex problems and find the best solution for your organization?

If you answered with "money" or any variation of that answer (bonuses, incentives, etc.) you probably aren't alone. Conventional economic and business wisdom for years has stated that if you want workers to work hard through complex problems, dangling some cash in front of them was the best way to get to the best solution.

"As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected," Pink explains. "The higher the pay the better performance. But once the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance."

It's important to note that Dan Pink isn't suggesting that money is useless as a motivator, just that employees should be paid enough to take the issue of money off the table. This makes sense. I'm sure most of us have at some point in time experienced stress in our lives related to money that has interfered with our workday. You may be experiencing it even now. Paying employees enough to take away this concern is essential, especially in a down economy.

But beyond that, Pink says that research has found that money and monetary incentives are in fact quite a lousy motivator.

I would suspect (and hope) that most of you reading this have a job that requires rudimentary cognitive skill. So what can we take away from this research?

Motivation is a key factor in succeeding in business, regardless of your industry. As an Editor of EyesOnSales.com, I have come across hundreds of articles that stress the importance of motivation. But most of this advice never goes beyond the personal level, or what a sales rep or manager can do to ensure that they'll keep their focus and work hard. I don't recall a lot of advice focusing on creating a motivational work environment that harnesses the right energies to bring the best ideas out of their workforce.

Pink describes three areas essential to motivating a workforce: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy means the desire to feel self-directed and feel a certain ownership over the work they perform. Sounds simple enough, but when the going gets tough at organizations many times you’ll see a management “clampdown” that leaves workers feeling anything but autonomous. Facing the pressure of declining revenues, managers might unknowingly double-down on their employees and act as more of a "big brother" type force that discourages independence and autonomy.

Mastery is the basic human drive to want to excel at certain things. We'd all like to get better at something. Growth is equally essential in any position. Companies certainly have a role to ensure the personal growth and expertise of their employees. As individuals, we too need to remember to take the time to hone in and improve our skills. The limitless resources of the internet makes this a much easier task than it was even 5 years ago, and it takes personal responsibility to reserve time towards self-improvement. Falling into routine is a sure-fire way to guarantee mediocre accomplishments.

The final aspect of ensuring a motivated workforce is perhaps the trickiest to create, a strong purpose. What's the purpose of your organization? What's the purpose of your role within your organization? If you have to take a moment to think about your answer, it's probably not a strong enough purpose to guarantee your own motivation. The most successful people in this world have a sense of purpose that runs bone deep. Similar to how it's near impossible to sell something you don't honestly believe in, it's even more difficult to sell yourself on working hard on something you don't feel has any purpose.

This morning and this afternoon my entire organization is getting together for a low-key brainstorming session to harvest the great ideas as we move forward into Q4. It's a terrific opportunity not only to find new solutions to existing business issues we face, but also ensure that everyone will come out with a stronger sense of purpose that will last into the months ahead. I consider myself fortunate to work for an organization that understands how crucial a strong sense of purpose is for success.

When looking for solutions to complex problems, we're often told as employees to "think outside the box." Maybe it's time that organizations start "thinking outside the box" on how to motivate their workforce to best work through those complex problems. Similar to how Henry Ford's Model T assembly line revolutionized how we saw business in the 20th century, the new ways we discover to motivate employees will likely revolutionize the next century.

It is key to finding those creative and groundbreaking ideas that put you ahead of your competition. And I believe we are just seeing the beginning of companies that are tapping into this energy.